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  • SQL SERVER – Expanding Views – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198) – Day 4 of 5

    - by pinaldave
    August 2011 we ran a contest where every day we give away one book for an entire month. The contest had extreme success. Lots of people participated and lots of give away. I have received lots of questions if we are doing something similar this month. Absolutely, instead of running a contest a month long we are doing something more interesting. We are giving away USD 198 worth gift every day for this week. We are giving away Joes 2 Pros 5 Volumes (BOOK) SQL 2008 Development Certification Training Kit every day. One copy in India and One in USA. Total 2 of the giveaway (worth USD 198). All the gifts are sponsored from the Koenig Training Solution and Joes 2 Pros. The books are available here Amazon | Flipkart | Indiaplaza How to Win: Read the Question Read the Hints Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India residents only) 2 Winners will be randomly selected announced on August 20th. Question of the Day: Which of the following key word will force the query to use indexes created on views? a) ENCRYPTION b) SCHEMABINDING c) NOEXPAND d) CHECK OPTION Query Hints: BIG HINT POST Usually, the assumption is that Index on the table will use Index on the table and Index on view will be used by view. However, that is the misconception. It does not happen this way. In fact, if you notice the image, you will find the both of them (table and view) use both the index created on the table. The index created on the view is not used. The reason for the same as listed in BOL. The cost of using the indexed view may exceed the cost of getting the data from the base tables, or the query is so simple that a query against the base tables is fast and easy to find. This often happens when the indexed view is defined on small tables. You can use the NOEXPAND hint if you want to force the query processor to use the indexed view. This may require you to rewrite your query if you don’t initially reference the view explicitly. You can get the actual cost of the query with NOEXPAND and compare it to the actual cost of the query plan that doesn’t reference the view. If they are close, this may give you the confidence that the decision of whether or not to use the indexed view doesn’t matter. Additional Hints: I have previously discussed various concepts from SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Volume 4. SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Structured Error Handling SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – SQL Server Error Messages SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Table-Valued Functions SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Table-Valued Store Procedure Parameters SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Easy Introduction to CHECK Options SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Introduction to Views SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – All about SQL Constraints Next Step: Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India) Bonus Winner Leave a comment with your favorite article from the “additional hints” section and you may be eligible for surprise gift. There is no country restriction for this Bonus Contest. Do mention why you liked it any particular blog post and I will announce the winner of the same along with the main contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Query Hint – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198) – Day 1 of 5

    - by pinaldave
    August 2011 we ran a contest where every day we give away one book for an entire month. The contest had extreme success. Lots of people participated and lots of give away. I have received lots of questions if we are doing something similar this month. Absolutely, instead of running a contest a month long we are doing something more interesting. We are giving away USD 198 worth gift every day for this week. We are giving away Joes 2 Pros 5 Volumes (BOOK) SQL 2008 Development Certification Training Kit every day. One copy in India and One in USA. Total 2 of the giveaway (worth USD 198). All the gifts are sponsored from the Koenig Training Solution and Joes 2 Pros. The books are available here Amazon | Flipkart | Indiaplaza How to Win: Read the Question Read the Hints Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India residents only) 2 Winners will be randomly selected announced on August 20th. Question of the Day: Which of the following queries will return dirty data? a) SELECT * FROM Table1 (READUNCOMMITED) b) SELECT * FROM Table1 (NOLOCK) c) SELECT * FROM Table1 (DIRTYREAD) d) SELECT * FROM Table1 (MYLOCK) Query Hints: BIG HINT POST Most SQL people know what a “Dirty Record” is. You might also call that an “Intermediate record”. In case this is new to you here is a very quick explanation. The simplest way to describe the steps of a transaction is to use an example of updating an existing record into a table. When the insert runs, SQL Server gets the data from storage, such as a hard drive, and loads it into memory and your CPU. The data in memory is changed and then saved to the storage device. Finally, a message is sent confirming the rows that were affected. For a very short period of time the update takes the data and puts it into memory (an intermediate state), not a permanent state. For every data change to a table there is a brief moment where the change is made in the intermediate state, but is not committed. During this time, any other DML statement needing that data waits until the lock is released. This is a safety feature so that SQL Server evaluates only official data. For every data change to a table there is a brief moment where the change is made in this intermediate state, but is not committed. During this time, any other DML statement (SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE) needing that data must wait until the lock is released. This is a safety feature put in place so that SQL Server evaluates only official data. Additional Hints: I have previously discussed various concepts from SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Volume 1. SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Dirty Records and Table Hints SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Row Constructors SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Finding un-matching Records SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Efficient Query Writing Strategy SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Finding Apostrophes in String and Text SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Wildcard – Querying Special Characters SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Wildcard Basics Recap Next Step: Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India) Bonus Winner Leave a comment with your favorite article from the “additional hints” section and you may be eligible for surprise gift. There is no country restriction for this Bonus Contest. Do mention why you liked it any particular blog post and I will announce the winner of the same along with the main contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Clustered Index and Primary Key – Contest Win Joes 2 Pros Combo (USD 198) – Day 3 of 5

    - by pinaldave
    August 2011 we ran a contest where every day we give away one book for an entire month. The contest had extreme success. Lots of people participated and lots of give away. I have received lots of questions if we are doing something similar this month. Absolutely, instead of running a contest a month long we are doing something more interesting. We are giving away USD 198 worth gift every day for this week. We are giving away Joes 2 Pros 5 Volumes (BOOK) SQL 2008 Development Certification Training Kit every day. One copy in India and One in USA. Total 2 of the giveaway (worth USD 198). All the gifts are sponsored from the Koenig Training Solution and Joes 2 Pros. The books are available here Amazon | Flipkart | Indiaplaza How to Win: Read the Question Read the Hints Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India residents only) 2 Winners will be randomly selected announced on August 20th. Question of the Day: Which of the following datatype is usually NOT the best choice for Primary Key and Clustered Index? a) INT b) BIGINT c) GUID d) SMALLINT Query Hints: BIG HINT POST The clustered index is the placement order of a table’s records in memory pages. When you insert new records, then each record will be inserted into the memory page in the order it belongs. In the figure below we see another new record (Major Disarray) being inserted, in sequence, between Jonny and Rick. Since there is no room in this memory page, some records will need to shift around. The page split occurs when Irenes’ record moves to the second page. Page splits are considered very bad for performance, and there are a number of techniques to reduce, or even eliminate, the risk of page splits. You can create a clustered index on the table on any field you choose. Sometime SQL will create a clustered index for you. Often times the field having the Primary Key makes a great candidate for the clustered index. Additional Hints: I have previously discussed various concepts from SQL Server Joes 2 Pros Volume 3. SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – All about SQL Statistics SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Introduction to Page Split SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – The Clustered Index – Simple Understanding SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Geography Data Type – Calculating Distance Between Two Points on the Earth SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Sparse Data and Space Used by Sparse Data SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – System and Time Data Types SQL Joes 2 Pros Development Series – Data Row Space Usage and NULL Storage Next Step: Answer the Quiz in Contact Form in following format Question Answer Name of the country (The contest is open for USA and India) Bonus Winner Leave a comment with your favorite article from the “additional hints” section and you may be eligible for surprise gift. There is no country restriction for this Bonus Contest. Do mention why you liked it any particular blog post and I will announce the winner of the same along with the main contest. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Identifying Column Data Type of uniqueidentifier without Querying System Tables

    - by pinaldave
    I love interesting conversations with related to SQL Server. One of my friends Madhivanan always comes up with an interesting point of conversation. Here is one of the conversation between us. I am very confident this blog post will for sure enable you with some new knowledge. Madhi: How do I know if any table has a uniqueidentifier column used in it? Pinal:  I am sure you know that you can do it through some DMV or catalogue views. Madhi: I know that but how can we do that without using DMV or catalogue views? Pinal: Hm… what can I use? Madhi: You can use table name. Pinal: Easy, just say SELECT YourUniqueIdentCol FROM Table. Madhi: Hold on, the question seems to be not clear to you – you do know the name of the column. The matter of the fact, you do not know if the table has uniqueidentifier column. Only information you have is table name. Pinal: Madhi, this seems like you are changing the question when I am close to answer. Madhi: Well, are you clear now? Let me say it again – How do I know if any table has a uniqueidentifier column and what is its value without using any DMV or System Catalogues? Only information you know is table name and you are allowed to return any kind of error if table does not have uniqueidentifier column. Pinal: Do you know the answer? Madhi: Yes. I just wanted to test your knowledge about SQL. Pinal: I will have to think. Let me accept I do not know it right away. Can you share the answer please? Madhi: I won! Here it goes! Pinal: When I have friends like you – who needs enemies? Madhi: (laughter which did not stop for a minute). CREATE TABLE t ( GuidCol UNIQUEIDENTIFIER DEFAULT newsequentialid() ROWGUIDCOL, data VARCHAR(60) ) INSERT INTO t (data) SELECT 'test' INSERT INTO t (data) SELECT 'test1' SELECT $rowguid FROM t DROP TABLE t This is indeed very interesting to me. Please note that this is not the optimal way and there will be many other ways to retrieve uniqueidentifier name and value. What I learned from this was if I am in a rush to check if the table has uniqueidentifier and I do not know the name of the same, I can use SELECT TOP (1) $rowguid and quickly know the name of the column. I can later use the same columnname in my query. Madhi did teach me this new trick. Did you know this? What are other ways to get the check uniqueidentifier column existence in a database? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Server Management Studio, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • SQL SERVER – Recover the Accidentally Renamed Table

    - by pinaldave
    I have no answer to following question. I saw a desperate email marked as urgent delivered in my mailbox. “I accidentally renamed table in my SSMS. I was scrolling very fast and I made mistakes. It was either because I double clicked or clicked on F2 (shortcut key for renaming). However, I have made the mistake and now I have no idea how to fix this. I am in big trouble. Help me get my original tablename.” I have seen many similar scenarios in my life and they give me a very good opportunity to preach wisdom but when the house is burning, we cannot talk about how we should have conserved the water earlier. The goal at that point is to put off the fire as fast as we can. I decided to answer this email with my best knowledge. If you have renamed the table, I think you pretty much is out of luck. Here are few things which you can do which can give you idea about what your tablename can be if you are lucky. Method 1: (Not Recommended but try your luck) Check your naming convention of your system. I have often seen that many organizations name their index as IX_TableName_Colms or name their keys as FK_TableName1_TableName2_Cols. If your organization is following the same you can get the name from your table, you may refer your keys. Again, note that this is quite possible that your tablename was already renamed and your keys were not updated. This can easily lead you to select incorrect name. I think follow this if you are confident or move to the next method. Method 2: (Not Recommended but try your luck) This method is also based on your orgs naming convention. If you use the name of the table in any columnname (some organizations use tablename in their incremental identity column name), you can get that name from there. Method 3: (Not Recommended but try your luck) If you know where your table was used in your stored procedures, you can script your stored procedure and find the name of the table back. Method 4: (Try your luck) All the best organizations first create a data model of the schema and there is good chance that this table is used there, you should take your chances and refer original document. If your organization is good at managing docs or source code, you will get the name of the table back for sure. Method 5: (It WORKS but try on a development server) There is no sure way to get you the name of the table which you accidentally renamed however, there is one way which will work for sure. You need to take your latest full backup and restore it on your development server (remember not on production or where you have renamed this column). Now restore latest differential file of the full backup. Now restore all the log files one by one making sure that you are restoring before the point of time of you renamed the tablename. Now go to explore and this will give you the name of the table which you have renamed. If you are confident that the same table existed with the same name when the last full backup was made, you do not have to go to all the steps. You can just get the name of the table directly from last backup’s restore. Read the article about Backup Timeline. Wisdom: How can I miss to preach wisdom when I get the opportunity to do so? Here are a few points to remember. Use a different account to explore production environment. Do not use the same account which have all the rights and permissions all the time. Use the account which has read only permissions if there are no modification required. Use policy based management to prevent changes which are accidental. If there was policy of valid names, the accidental change of the table was not possible unless it was intentional delibarate changes. Have a proper auditing of the system in place. You can use DDL triggers but be careful with its usage (get it reviewed properly first). (Add your suggestion here) I guess Method 5 will work all the time (using point in time restore). Everything else is chance of luck and if you are lucky are bad – you will get further incorrect name. Now go back and read the first line of this blog. Out of five method four methods are just lucky guesses. The method 5 will work but again it is a lengthy process if the size of the database is huge or if you do not have full backup. Did I miss anything obvious? Please leave a comment and I will publish your answer with due credit. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Puzzle, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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  • How can I use the Fisher-Yates shuffle while ensuring my permutation is even?

    - by Mithrax
    I'm interested making an implementation of the 14-15 puzzle: I'm creating an array with the values 0 - 15 in increasing order: S = { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 } Now, what I want to do is shuffle them to create a new instance of the puzzle. However, I know that if I create a board with an "odd permutation" than it is unsolvable. Wikipedia says I need to create the puzzle with an even permutation. I believe this means that I simply have to do ensure I do an even number of swaps? How would I modify Fisher-Yates so I ensure I end up with an even permutation at the end? If I do a swap for every element in the array that would be 16 swaps which I believe would be an even permutation. However, do I need to be concerned about swapping with itself? Is there any other way to ensure I have a valid puzzle?

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  • questions regarding the use of A* with the 15-square puzzle

    - by Cheeso
    I'm trying to build an A* solver for a 15-square puzzle. The goal is to re-arrange the tiles so that they appear in their natural positions. You can only slide one tile at a time. Each possible state of the puzzle is a node in the search graph. For the h(x) function, I am using an aggregate sum, across all tiles, of the tile's dislocation from the goal state. In the above image, the 5 is at location 0,0, and it belongs at location 1,0, therefore it contributes 1 to the h(x) function. The next tile is the 11, located at 0,1, and belongs at 2,2, therefore it contributes 3 to h(x). And so on. EDIT: I now understand this is what they call "Manhattan distance", or "taxicab distance". I have been using a step count for g(x). In my implementation, for any node in the state graph, g is just +1 from the prior node's g. To find successive nodes, I just examine where I can possibly move the "hole" in the puzzle. There are 3 neighbors for the puzzle state (aka node) that is displayed: the hole can move north, west, or east. My A* search sometimes converges to a solution in 20s, sometimes 180s, and sometimes doesn't converge at all (waited 10 mins or more). I think h is reasonable. I'm wondering if I've modeled g properly. In other words, is it possible that my A* function is reaching a node in the graph via a path that is not the shortest path? Maybe have I not waited long enough? Maybe 10 minutes is not long enough? For a fully random arrangement, (assuming no parity problems), What is the average number of permutations an A* solution will examine? (please show the math) I'm going to look for logic errors in my code, but in the meantime, Any tips? (ps: it's done in Javascript). Also, no, this isn't CompSci homework. It's just a personal exploration thing. I'm just trying to learn Javascript. EDIT: I've found that the run-time is highly depend upon the heuristic. I saw the 10x factor applied to the heuristic from the article someone mentioned, and it made me wonder - why 10x? Why linear? Because this is done in javascript, I could modify the code to dynamically update an html table with the node currently being considered. This allowd me to peek at the algorithm as it was progressing. With a regular taxicab distance heuristic, I watched as it failed to converge. There were 5's and 12's in the top row, and they kept hanging around. I'd see 1,2,3,4 creep into the top row, but then they'd drop out, and other numbers would move up there. What I was hoping to see was 1,2,3,4 sort of creeping up to the top, and then staying there. I thought to myself - this is not the way I solve this personally. Doing this manually, I solve the top row, then the 2ne row, then the 3rd and 4th rows sort of concurrently. So I tweaked the h(x) function to more heavily weight the higher rows and the "lefter" columns. The result was that the A* converged much more quickly. It now runs in 3 minutes instead of "indefinitely". With the "peek" I talked about, I can see the smaller numbers creep up to the higher rows and stay there. Not only does this seem like the right thing, it runs much faster. I'm in the process of trying a bunch of variations. It seems pretty clear that A* runtime is very sensitive to the heuristic. Currently the best heuristic I've found uses the summation of dislocation * ((4-i) + (4-j)) where i and j are the row and column, and dislocation is the taxicab distance. One interesting part of the result I got: with a particular heuristic I find a path very quickly, but it is obviously not the shortest path. I think this is because I am weighting the heuristic. In one case I got a path of 178 steps in 10s. My own manual effort produce a solution in 87 moves. (much more than 10s). More investigation warranted. So the result is I am seeing it converge must faster, and the path is definitely not the shortest. I have to think about this more. Code: var stop = false; function Astar(start, goal, callback) { // start and goal are nodes in the graph, represented by // an array of 16 ints. The goal is: [1,2,3,...14,15,0] // Zero represents the hole. // callback is a method to call when finished. This runs a long time, // therefore we need to use setTimeout() to break it up, to avoid // the browser warning like "Stop running this script?" // g is the actual distance traveled from initial node to current node. // h is the heuristic estimate of distance from current to goal. stop = false; start.g = start.dontgo = 0; // calcHeuristic inserts an .h member into the array calcHeuristicDistance(start); // start the stack with one element var closed = []; // set of nodes already evaluated. var open = [ start ]; // set of nodes to evaluate (start with initial node) var iteration = function() { if (open.length==0) { // no more nodes. Fail. callback(null); return; } var current = open.shift(); // get highest priority node // update the browser with a table representation of the // node being evaluated $("#solution").html(stateToString(current)); // check solution returns true if current == goal if (checkSolution(current,goal)) { // reconstructPath just records the position of the hole // through each node var path= reconstructPath(start,current); callback(path); return; } closed.push(current); // get the set of neighbors. This is 3 or fewer nodes. // (nextStates is optimized to NOT turn directly back on itself) var neighbors = nextStates(current, goal); for (var i=0; i<neighbors.length; i++) { var n = neighbors[i]; // skip this one if we've already visited it if (closed.containsNode(n)) continue; // .g, .h, and .previous get assigned implicitly when // calculating neighbors. n.g is nothing more than // current.g+1 ; // add to the open list if (!open.containsNode(n)) { // slot into the list, in priority order (minimum f first) open.priorityPush(n); n.previous = current; } } if (stop) { callback(null); return; } setTimeout(iteration, 1); }; // kick off the first iteration iteration(); return null; }

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  • "Untangle"-Game AI

    - by M0rgenstern
    I am trying to program an AI for such untangle games like Untangle game. I tried the following possibilities: 1) Just set one node after the other to a random place. If every node was moved once, start over with the first node in the list. 2) First move all nodes which have the most wrong connections. If all were moved once, move the nodes which have the fewest (but not 0) wrong connections. If all were moved but there are some left, move all which are left. If none are left start over. 3) Just 2) bust starting with the nodes with the fewest connections. 4)/5) As 2) and 3) but when I didn't move nodes which have only correct connections. All of these approaches are too slow and inefficient. Can anyone suggest a solution which does not depend so much on fortune?

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  • Alchemy like game for the web, open source. Any ideas for element combinations?

    - by JohnDel
    I created a web game like the Android game Alchemy. It's open source and in the back-end you can create your own elements / your own game. I was wondering what elements - ideas would be good to implement as a prototype / demo? Some ideas are: Colors Programming languages Chemical Compounds Same as the original alchemy Evolution of biological organisms What do you think? Any specific combination ideas?

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  • Logic that can traverse all possible layouts, but not checking every combination of identical pieces?

    - by George Bailey
    Suppose we have a grid of arbitrary size, which is filled by blocks of various widths and heights. There are many 2x2 blocks (meaning they take a total of 4 cells in the grid) and many 3x3 blocks, as well as some 5x4, 4x5, 2x3, etc. I was hoping I could set up a program that would look at all possible layouts, and rank them, and find the best one. Simply it would look at all possible positions of these blocks, and see what setup is the best rank. (the rank based on how many of these can be connected by a roadway system of 1x1 road blocks, and how many squares can be left empty after this is done. - wanting to fit the most blocks as possible with the least roads.) My question, is how should I traverse all the possibilities? I could take all the blocks and try them one at a time, but since all 2x2 blocks are equal, and there are a couple dozen of them, there is no point in trying every combination there, as in the following AA BBB AA BBB CCBBB CCEEE DD EEE DD EEE is exactly the same as CC EEE CC EEE AAEEE AABBB DD BBB DD BBB You notice that there are 2 3x3 blocks and 3 2x2 blocks in my two examples. Based on the model I have now, the computer would try both of these combinations, as well as many others. The problem is that it is going to try every single possible variation of my couple dozen 2x2 blocks. And that is sorely inefficient. Is there a reasonable way to take out this duplicated work, somehow getting the computer program to treat all 2x2 blocks as equal/identical, instead of one requiring rearranging/swapping of these identical blocks? Can this be done?

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  • Finding shapes in 2D Array, then optimising

    - by assemblism
    I'm new so I can't do an image, but below is a diagram for a game I am working on, moving bricks into patterns, and I currently have my code checking for rotated instances of a "T" shape of any colour. The X and O blocks would be the same colour, and my last batch of code would find the "T" shape where the X's are, but what I wanted was more like the second diagram, with two "T"s Current result      Desired Result [X][O][O]                [1][1][1] [X][X][_]                [2][1][_] [X][O][_]                [2][2][_] [O][_][_]                [2][_][_] My code loops through x/y, marks blocks as used, rotates the shape, repeats, changes colour, repeats. I have started trying to fix this checking with great trepidation. The current idea is to: loop through the grid and make note of all pattern occurrences (NOT marking blocks as used), and putting these to an array loop through the grid again, this time noting which blocks are occupied by which patterns, and therefore which are occupied by multiple patterns. looping through the grid again, this time noting which patterns obstruct which patterns That much feels right... What do I do now? I think I would have to try various combinations of conflicting shapes, starting with those that obstruct the most other patterns first.How do I approach this one? use the rational that says I have 3 conflicting shapes occupying 8 blocks, and the shapes are 4 blocks each, therefore I can only have a maximum of two shapes. (I also intend to incorporate other shapes, and there will probably be score weighting which will need to be considered when going through the conflicting shapes, but that can be another day) I don't think it's a bin packing problem, but I'm not sure what to look for. Hope that makes sense, thanks for your help

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  • XNA 2D Board game - trouble with the cursor

    - by Adorjan
    I just have started making a simple 2D board game using XNA, but I got stuck at the movement of the cursor. This is my problem: I have a 10x10 table on with I should use a cursor to navigate. I simply made that table with the spriteBatch.Draw() function because I couldn't do it on another way. So here is what I did with the cursor: public override void LoadContent() { ... mutato.Position = new Vector2(X, Y); //X=103, Y=107; mutato.Sebesseg = 45; ... mutato.Initialize(content.Load<Texture2D>("cursor"),mutato.Position,mutato.Sebesseg); ... } public override void HandleInput(InputState input) { if (input == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("input"); // Look up inputs for the active player profile. int playerIndex = (int)ControllingPlayer.Value; KeyboardState keyboardState = input.CurrentKeyboardStates[playerIndex]; if (input.IsPauseGame(ControllingPlayer) || gamePadDisconnected) { ScreenManager.AddScreen(new PauseMenuScreen(), ControllingPlayer); } else { // Otherwise move the player position. if (keyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down)) { Y = (int)mutato.Position.Y + mutato.Move; } if (keyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up)) { Y = (int)mutato.Position.Y - mutato.Move; } if (keyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Left)) { X = (int)mutato.Position.X - mutato.Move; } if (keyboardState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Right)) { X = (int)mutato.Position.X + mutato.Move; } } } public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { mutato.Draw(spriteBatch); } Here's the cursor's (mutato) class: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; namespace Battleship.Components { class Cursor { public Texture2D Cursortexture; public Vector2 Position; public int Move; public void Initialize(Texture2D texture, Vector2 position,int move) { Cursortexture = texture; Position = position; Move = move; } public void Update() { } public void Draw(SpriteBatch spriteBatch) { spriteBatch.Draw(Cursortexture, Position, Color.White); } } } And here is a part of the InputState class where I think I should change something: public bool IsNewKeyPress(Keys key, PlayerIndex? controllingPlayer, out PlayerIndex playerIndex) { if (controllingPlayer.HasValue) { // Read input from the specified player. playerIndex = controllingPlayer.Value; int i = (int)playerIndex; return (CurrentKeyboardStates[i].IsKeyDown(key) && LastKeyboardStates[i].IsKeyUp(key)); } } If I leave the movement operation like this it doesn't have any sense: X = (int)mutato.Position.X - mutato.Move; However if I modify it to this: X = (int)mutato.Position.X--; it moves smoothly. Instead of this I need to move the cursor by fields (45 pixels), but I don't have any idea how to manage it.

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  • First Steps. Windows Phone game development

    - by anatoliiG
    I'm pretty new in game development. Have a couple ideas wich could be cool. First that comes to mind is to develop a 2D game (kinda puzzles) for Windows Phone Mango. You may ask: "Why Windows Phone?". I answer - I've got solid experience in Silverlight and C#. For me, this is a major advantage compared to other platforms. Please, give advice and suggestions about: What should I read? Best practices. Third party libraries. Silverlight(Only) vs XNA. Whatever I should pay attention to.

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  • Generating all unique crossword puzzle grids

    - by heydenberk
    I want to generate all unique crossword puzzle grids of a certain grid size (4x4 is a good size). All possible puzzles, including non-unique puzzles, are represented by a binary string with the length of the grid area (16 in the case of 4x4), so all possible 4x4 puzzles are represented by the binary forms of all numbers in the range 0 to 2^16. Generating these is easy, but I'm curious if anyone has a good solution for how to programmatically eliminate invalid and duplicate cases. For example, all puzzles with a single column or single row are functionally identical, hence eliminating 7 of those 8 cases. Also, according to crossword puzzle conventions, all squares must be contiguous. I've had success removing all duplicate structures, but my solution took several minutes to execute and probably was not ideal. I'm at something of a loss for how to detect contiguity so if anyone has ideas on this it'd be much appreciated. I'd prefer solutions in python but write in whichever language you prefer. If anyone wants, I can post my python code for generating all grids and removing duplicates, slow as it may be.

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  • How can I guarantee a solvable Fifteen Puzzle shuffle?

    - by Codemiester
    I am making a 15 Puzzle game in C# that allows the user to enter a custom row and column value up to a maximum of a 10 x 10 puzzle. I am having problems with the shuffle method. I want to make it so the puzzle is always solvable by first creating a winning puzzle then shuffling the empty space. The problem is it is too inefficient to call every click event each time. I need a way to invoke the click event of a button adjacent to the empty space but not diagonal. I also use an invisible static button for the empty spot. The PuzzlePiece class inherits from Button. I am not too sure how to do this. Here is what I have: private void shuffleBoard() { //5 is just for test purposes for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) { foreach (Control item in this.Controls) { if (item is PuzzlePiece) { ((PuzzlePiece)item).PerformClick(); } } } } void PuzzlePiece_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { PuzzlePiece piece = (PuzzlePiece)sender; if (piece.Right == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Left && piece.Top == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Top) { movePiece(piece); } else if (piece.Left == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Right && piece.Top == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Top) { movePiece(piece); } else if (piece.Top == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Bottom && piece.Left == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Left) { movePiece(piece); } else if (piece.Bottom == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Top && piece.Left == puzzleForm.emptyPiece.Left) { movePiece(piece); } }

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  • How to create Jigsaw image puzzle using C#

    - by buzzy2020
    HI, I am trying to figure out how to take an image file and convert it into a puzzle. I know how to do rectangular puzzles, but I am looking for non-rectangular shapes. Please see this link, I am looking to arrive something like the final output http://howto.nicubunu.ro/gimp_jigsaw_puzzle/ Is there a way we can do this using .NET Thanks in advance

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  • A puzzle coded in ASCII [closed]

    - by user1905398
    I'm asking this question again because it is valid: "How do I convert this: M D Y z M D Y w M D Y z M D Y x M D Y z M D Y w M D Y z M D Y w M D Y z M D Y w M D Y z M D Y x M D Y z M D Y x M D Y z M D Y w into a letter? I have 272 constructed just like this one that I need to convert to form the message in a mystery I'm trying to solve. Thanks!" It is very difficult to include all 272 strings with each one having 16 sets of 4! There wouldn't be enough room in this post for that, so I just put the first of the 272 strings. To hopefully clarify, this is a puzzle. The puzzler put his 272 word message in ASCII. Since there is no online converter, I put the question out hoping to get some help.

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  • Collision problems with drag-n-drop puzzle game.

    - by Amplify91
    I am working on an Android game similar to the Rush Hour/Traffic Jam/Blocked puzzle games. The board is a square containing rectangular pieces. Long pieces may only move horizontally, and tall pieces may only move vertically. The object is to free the red piece and move it out of the board. This game is only my second ever programming project in any language, so any tips or best practices would be appreciated along with your answer. I have a class for the game pieces called Pieces that describes how they are sized and drawn to the screen, gives them drag-and-drop functionality, and detects and handles collisions. I then have an activity class called GameView which creates my layout and creates Pieces objects to add to a RelativeLayout called Board. I have considered making Board its own class, but haven't needed to yet. Here's what my work in progress looks like: My Question: Most of this works perfectly fine except for my collision handling. It seems to be detecting collisions well but instead of pushing the pieces outside of each other when there is a collision, it frantically snaps back and forth between (what seems to be) where the piece is being dragged to and where it should be. It looks something like this: Another oddity: when the dragged piece collides with a piece to its left, the collision handling seems to work perfectly. Only piece above, below, and to the right cause problems. Here's the collision code: @Override public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event){ float eventX = event.getX(); float eventY = event.getY(); switch (event.getAction()) { case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN: //check if touch is on piece if (eventX > x && eventX < (x+width) && eventY > y && eventY < (y+height)){ initialX=x; initialY=y; break; }else{ return false; } case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE: //determine if piece should move horizontally or vertically if(width>height){ for (Pieces piece : aPieces) { //if object equals itself in array, skip to next object if(piece==this){ continue; } //if next to another piece, //do not allow to move any further towards said piece if(eventX<x&&(x==piece.right+1)){ return false; }else if(eventX>x&&(x==piece.x-width-1)){ return false; } //move normally if no collision //if collision, do not allow to move through other piece if(collides(this,piece)==false){ x = (eventX-(width/2)); }else if(collidesLeft(this,piece)){ x = piece.right+1; break; }else if(collidesRight(this,piece)){ x = piece.x-width-1; break; } } break; }else if(height>width){ for (Pieces piece : aPieces) { if(piece==this){ continue; }else if(collides(this,piece)==false){ y = (eventY-(height/2)); }else if(collidesUp(this,piece)){ y = piece.bottom+1; break; }else if(collidesDown(this,piece)){ y = piece.y-height-1; break; } } } invalidate(); break; case MotionEvent.ACTION_UP: // end move if(this.moves()){ GameView.counter++; } initialX=x; initialY=y; break; } // parse puzzle invalidate(); return true; } This takes place during onDraw: width = sizedBitmap.getWidth(); height = sizedBitmap.getHeight(); right = x+width; bottom = y+height; My collision-test methods look like this with different math for each: private boolean collidesDown(Pieces piece1, Pieces piece2){ float x1 = piece1.x; float y1 = piece1.y; float r1 = piece1.right; float b1 = piece1.bottom; float x2 = piece2.x; float y2 = piece2.y; float r2 = piece2.right; float b2 = piece2.bottom; if((y1<y2)&&(y1<b2)&&(b1>=y2)&&(b1<b2)&&((x1>=x2&&x1<=r2)||(r1>=x2&&x1<=r2))){ return true; }else{ return false; } } private boolean collides(Pieces piece1, Pieces piece2){ if(collidesLeft(piece1,piece2)){ return true; }else if(collidesRight(piece1,piece2)){ return true; }else if(collidesUp(piece1,piece2)){ return true; }else if(collidesDown(piece1,piece2)){ return true; }else{ return false; } } As a second question, should my x,y,right,bottom,width,height variables be ints instead of floats like they are now? Also, any suggestions on how to implement things better would be greatly appreciated, even if not relevant to the question! Thanks in advance for the help and for sitting through such a long question! Update: I have gotten it working almost perfectly with the following code (this doesn't include the code for vertical pieces): @Override public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event){ float eventX = event.getX(); float eventY = event.getY(); switch (event.getAction()) { case MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN: //check if touch is on piece if (eventX > x && eventX < (x+width) && eventY > y && eventY < (y+height)){ initialX=x; initialY=y; break; }else{ return false; } case MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE: //determine if piece should move horizontally or vertically if(width>height){ for (Pieces piece : aPieces) { //if object equals itself in array, skip to next object if(piece==this){ continue; } //check if there the possibility for a horizontal collision if(this.isAllignedHorizontallyWith(piece)){ //check for and handle collisions while moving left if(this.isRightOf(piece)){ if(eventX>piece.right+(width/2)){ x = (int)(eventX-(width/2)); //move normally }else{ x = piece.right+1; } } //check for and handle collisions while moving right if(this.isLeftOf(piece)){ if(eventX<piece.x-(width/2)){ x = (int)(eventX-(width/2)); }else{ x = piece.x-width-1; } } break; }else{ x = (int)(eventX-(width/2)); } The only problem with this code is that it only detects collisions between the moving piece and one other (with preference to one on the left). If there is a piece to collide with on the left and another on the right, it will only detect collisions with the one on the left. I think this is because once it finds a possible collision, it handles it without finishing looping through the array holding all the pieces. How do I get it to check for multiple possible collisions at the same time?

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  • Increase efficiency for an R simulator of the Monty Hall Puzzle

    - by jahan_m
    The Monty Hall Problem is a simple puzzle involving probability that even stumps professionals in careers dealing with some heavy-duty math. Here's the basic problem: Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice? You can find numerous explanations of the solution here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem Goal of my simulation: Prove that a switching strategy will win you the car 2/3 of the time. I got curious and wanted to write a little function that simulates the problem many times and returns the proportion of wins if you switched and the proportion of wins if you stayed with your first choice. The function then plots the cumulative wins. First and foremost, I'm interested in hearing if my simulation is indeed replicating the Monty Problem, or if some aspect of the code got it wrong. Secondly, this function takes a long time to run once I get to about 10,000 simulations. I know I don't need this many simulations to prove this but I'd love to hear some ideas on how to make it more efficient. Thanks for your feedback! Monty_Hall=function(repetitions){ doors=c('A','B','C') stay_wins=0 switch_wins=0 series=data.frame(sim_num=seq(repetitions),cum_sum_stay=replicate(repetitions,0),cum_sum_switch=replicate(repetitions,0)) for(i in seq(repetitions)){ winning_door=sample(doors,1) contestant_chooses=sample(doors,1) if(contestant_chooses==winning_door) stay_wins=stay_wins+1 else switch_wins=switch_wins+1 series[i,'cum_sum_stay']=stay_wins series[i,'cum_sum_switch']=switch_wins } plot(series$sim_num,series$cum_sum_switch,col=2,ylab='Cumulative # of wins', xlab='Simulation #',main=sprintf('%d Simulations of the Monty Hall Paradox',repetitions),type='l') lines(series$sim_num,series$cum_sum_stay,col=4) legend('topleft',legend=c('Cumulative wins from switching', 'Cumulative wins from staying'),col=c(2,4),lty=1) result=list(series=series,stay_wins=stay_wins,switch_wins=switch_wins, proportion_stay_wins=stay_wins/repetitions, proportion_switch_wins=switch_wins/repetitions) return(result) } #Theory predicts that it is to the contestant's advantage if he #switches his choice to the other door. This function simulates the game #many times, and shows you the proportion of games in which staying or #switching would win the car. It also plots the cumulative wins for each strategy. Monty_Hall(100)

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  • Using search to solve problems

    - by dan
    am trying to write a 4 x 4 grid using vertical bars and underscore. I have a class for the puzzle, but i want to know what fields and methods i can use to represent and manipulate a configuration for the puzzle

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  • SQL Join to only the maximum row puzzle

    - by Billy ONeal
    Given the following example data: Users +--------------------------------------------------+ | ID | First Name | Last Name | Network Identifier | +--------------------------------------------------+ | 1 | Billy | O'Neal | bro4 | +----+------------+-----------+--------------------+ | 2 | John | Skeet | jsk1 | +----+------------+-----------+--------------------+ Hardware +----+-------------------+---------------+ | ID | Hardware Name | Serial Number | +----+-------------------+---------------+ | 1 | Latitude E6500 | 5555555 | +----+-------------------+---------------+ | 2 | Latitude E6200 | 2222222 | +----+-------------------+---------------+ HardwareAssignments +---------+-------------+-------------+ | User ID | Hardware ID | Assigned On | +---------+-------------+-------------+ | 1 | 1 | April 1 | +---------+-------------+-------------+ | 1 | 2 | April 10 | +---------+-------------+-------------+ | 2 | 2 | April 1 | +---------+-------------+-------------+ | 2 | 1 | April 11 | +---------+-------------+-------------+ I'd like to write a SQL query which would give the following result: +--------------------+------------+-----------+----------------+---------------+-------------+ | Network Identifier | First Name | Last Name | Hardware Name | Serial Number | Assigned On | +--------------------+------------+-----------+----------------+---------------+-------------+ | bro4 | Billy | O'Neal | Latitude E6200 | 2222222 | April 10 | +--------------------+------------+-----------+----------------+---------------+-------------+ | jsk1 | John | Skeet | Latitude E6500 | 5555555 | April 11 | +--------------------+------------+-----------+----------------+---------------+-------------+ My trouble is that the maximum "Assigned On" date for each user needs to be selected for each individual user and used for the actual join ... Is there a clever way accomplish this in SQL?

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  • ObjectContext disposed puzzle

    - by jaklucky
    Hi, I have the follwing method. public List<MyEntity> GetMyEntities(MyObjectContext objCtx) { using(MyObjectContext ctx = objCtx ?? new MyObjectContext()) { retun ctx.MyEntities.ToList(); } } The idea is, user of this method can pass in the objectcontext if they have. If not then a new objectcontext will be created. If I am passing an object context to it, then it is getting disposed after the method is done. I was expecting only "ctx" variable gets disposed. If I write a small app, to know the using and dispose mechanism. It is acting differently. class TestClass : IDisposable { public int Number { get; set; } public string Str { get; set; } public ChildClass Child { get; set; } #region IDisposable Members public void Dispose() { Console.WriteLine("Disposed is called"); } #endregion } class ChildClass : IDisposable { public string StrChild { get; set; } #region IDisposable Members public void Dispose() { Console.WriteLine("Child Disposed is called"); } #endregion } class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { TestClass test = null; test = new TestClass(); test.Child = new ChildClass(); using (TestClass test1 = test ?? new TestClass()) { test1.Number = 1; test1.Str = "hi"; test1.Child.StrChild = "Child one"; test1.Child.Dispose(); } test.Str = "hi"; test.Child.StrChild = "hi child"; Console.ReadLine(); } } In this example, "test1"gets disposed but not "test". Where as in the first case both ctx and objCtx get disposed. Any ideas what is happening here with objectContext? Thank you, Suresh

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  • Window 'onscreen' size puzzle

    - by Bender
    Okay, a REALLY fundamental question about window sizes here... If I create an NSWindow in IB, set its size to 216 x 144 points (exactly 3 inches by 2 inches) then print the window, it measures exactly what I set it to in IB. However, the onscreen display size measures approximately 156 x 105 points. What causes this, and is there any way to force the window to display at the required size onscreen? I ultimately want to draw to this (semi-transparent) window then use it as a full-sized overlay for comparison against a separately loaded scanned image of known size.

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